Morning Brief: Ford plans to end most of its US cars

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AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File

On Thursday, Amazon (AMZN) results due out after the market close will be the main event as a busy week for earnings rolls along, while over 40 other members of the S&P 500 are also set to report results during the week’s second-to-last trading day.

Investors will be looking for updates on the company’s integration with Whole Foods, which it bought in the summer of 2017 for $14 billion, the biggest acquisition in Amazon’s history. Analysts are also likely to ask Amazon about the company’s agreements with the United States Postal Service after President Donald Trump in recent weeks has taken aim at the company, saying the USPS’ agreements with Amazon are “not a level playing field,” among other complaints.

Top news

Ford promises more savings: Ford Motor Co. (F) said Wednesday it will shed most of its North American car lineup as part of a broad plan to save money and make the company more competitive in a fast-changing marketplace. The changes include getting rid of all cars in the region during the next four years except for the Mustang sports car and a compact Focus crossover vehicle, CEO Jim Hackett said as the company released first-quarter earnings. [Reuters]

Facebook beats earnings expectations, stock jumps: Virtually all eyes on Wall Street looked to Facebook (FB) on Wednesday, which posted first-quarter 2018 earnings that beat Wall Street’s estimates and followed one of the most controversial periods for the social network in its history. Facebook reported earnings of $1.69 per share on $11.97 billion in revenues for the quarter. Wall Street analysts were generally expecting earnings of $1.35 per share on revenues of $11.4 billion for the quarter. [Yahoo Finance]

Sonos files confidentially for planned summer IPO: Wireless speaker maker Sonos Inc. filed confidentially for an initial public offering, which it plans to hold as soon as this summer, people familiar with the matter said. The Santa Barbara, California-based company is looking to go public in June or July, targeting a market value of $2.5 billion to $3 billion, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. [Bloomberg]

Why Wall Street’s stock traders are having their best year since the crisis: A surge on Wall Street stock-trading desks is being driven by manic investor moves in derivatives, as fund managers scramble to protect their gains from future volatility. Following a leap in stock market gyrations so far this year, the biggest U.S. banks generated more revenue from stock trading than in any first quarter since the financial crisis, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of bank regulatory filings. [The Wall Street Journal]

Tourists enjoy themselves at Disney Pixar Toy Story Land as part of Shanghai Disney Resort on April 26, 2018 in Shanghai, China. Based on Pixar’s Toy Story characters, Disney Pixar Toy Story Land featuring three new attractions opens to the public as Shanghai Disneyland’s seventh land. (Photo by Zhang Hengwei/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)